Even from the sewer you can see the stars
by the dudette
Summary: Shredder challenges the turtles to a totally bodacious battle of the bands. Bonzai!


Van Halen, Guns and Roses, Poison: all those totally awesome bands and more, Michelangelo was watching all day on MTV. Fighting crime would have to wait; MTV was running a weekend-long power hour. But though his brothers had all taken to the streets without him, ridding the streets of petty crime, Mike hadn't forgotten his other life's calling: the twenty-four hour Chinese take-out place down the street never goes on holiday, and Mike had made sure to keep them to their word.  
  
"Panama, Pa-na-ma-aa," Mike yowled from behind a fort of dripping take-out cartons. "Man, that David Lee Roth is one righteous dude," thought Mike while propellering a three-fingered hand in an air guitar daydream. But just as Mike was about to leap across the room to finish his solo, the band and their neon bikini babes suddenly zapped off the screen.  
  
"My son, it is time that you practiced," said Splinter, tottering with difficulty through the crumpled take-out cartons. His nose crumpled in disdain of the stale aroma of chow mein and unshowered turtle.  
  
"Like, totally on it, Sensai," Mike said, eyes still fixed to the now black screen, skillfully twirling his nunchuks from one hand to the other.  
  
"You are deft with the weapon, my son, but witnessing the focus you dedicate to these 'rock stars,' as you call them, I believe there is another instrument you should master: the axe."  
  
"Like, I dunno Master Splinter. The axe is gnarly and all, but like, I'd like to stick with these dudes for a while longer," said Mike still twirling his nunchuks like drumsticks."  
  
Splinter tossed a carton across the room with his knotted cane, landing with a thwack against the broadside of Mike's skull.  
  
"Bogus! What gives, Sensai?"  
  
Without a word, Splinter approached the sore-headed turtle with his paws outstretched. In his arms, he cradled a glossy orange guitar with a faux- turtle shell print.  
  
Months earlier, while meditating along the bank of a floodway, Splinter had noticed the guitar floating in the city's sludge. The sight of the abandoned six-string summoned in Splinter a part of his past that was all but forgotten. Years ago, before he realized his gifts as a ninja, Splinter had found fuel for his soul through rock music. His friends and family could not understand his fascination with the raucous Western art form, but Splinter heard in the electric melodies of the American masters a power of youth and freedom to be found nowhere else. Practicing his technique secretly, and listening to American forces radio late at night for inspiration and reassurance, Splinter's talents grew to the point that those around him could not deny the beautiful force of his music. But those days were long behind him, his guitar, his music, left at the door of the ninja academy. Seeing the guitar rushing down the floodway made Splinter realize he still had important skills left to teach his turtle sons.  
  
The instrument wasn't difficult to recover out of the sewer, but he spent months lovingly repairing and restoring the instrument, dreaming of when he would be able to play once more and pass on his joy and knowledge to the turtles.  
  
"Bodacious," was all Michelangelo could say at the sight of Splinter's gift.  
  
"Now come my son, I have much to teach you, and it will be difficult-- especially as you only have but three fingers to work with. But no matter. He who wishes to see his star shine must be one wise and free in spirit but not strange to discipline. You, my son, will rock."  
  
"Radical," drooled Mike.  
  
******** Six months later, Michelangelo most righteously rocked. And in suit, his brothers grew curious of Mike's new musical abilities, DaVinci learning bass, Donatello mastering keyboards, and Rafael handling vocals and occasionally tambourine, to form a totally sensational new band. Together, the four turtles practiced day and night, stopping only thrice a day to phone out for kung pow chicken and rice. It wasn't long before the turtles' wicked new sound filtered up to the world above, and the people of Riverdale, and the sinsiter members of the Foot Clam, were wondering who was responsible for the pumping beat under the street.  
  
"Shred-deeer," wailed the Shrieking Brain, "I am most terribly tired. All that accursed rocking and rolling noise coming from under the city has kept me tossing and turning all night. How am I to plan world domination if I can't get my beauty sleep?"  
  
"Yes, Brain, I too have been plagued by sleepless nights, and I think I know who is responsible. Only those accursed turtles could make such a ridiculous racket."  
  
"I dunno boss," grunted Bebop from the corner, dancing with Rocksteady, "it's kinda rad."  
  
"Silence, moron," bellowed Shredder. "I haven't heard such a din since my days back at the ninja academy. My nemesis, Splinter, used to play melodies such as these on a cheap electric guitar. The old boy taught me a thing or two, a gifted man despite his weakness of character, and I could easily play circles around these subterranean simpletons."  
  
"Youse, boss?" questioned a dumbfounded Rocksteady.  
  
"Yes, dolt, and I could teach even a bottom-feeder such as yourself to play better than those reptiles in a snap."  
  
"We-ell, Shred-deer," cackled a sly-sounding Brain, "perhaps we shall be able to best those Tur-tells yet. I propose a battle of the bands, you and the two idiot twins against the Tur-tells. If you are as skillful as your boast, we shall make soup of them yet."  
  
"An excellent idea, Lord Brain. I will notify the media at once. This time next week in City Park, those Turtles are gonna be knocked off the charts. When the Shredder's a rocking turtles' skulls'll be knocking."  
  
"Eexcelleeent." ***********************************  
  
With news of Shredder's musical challenge flooding the airwaves, the citizens of Riverdale were suddently abuzz over the upcoming battle of the bands in City Park, most excited of all, the Turtles, who began an even more intense practice schedule, inciting impromptu block parties that danced to their subterannean jam all through the night.  
  
But the turtles' growing popularity with the citizens did not phase Shredder's band, the Feet. His boast to train Bebop and Rocksteady had not proved as strong as it had sounded a week earlier, but by hand-selecting 50 of the clam's most skilled faceless minions, Shredder had assembled a tight big band orchestra. Late into the night, Shredder dreamed of his soon approaching moment of glory, as he shined his armour in preparation for the big show. For once, he thought, the world would be cheering for him, not those annoying teenaged mutants.  
  
On the night of the concert, City Park was flooded with people. Vendors selling ninja masks and green face paint lined the paths and the sound of youngsters screaming the lyrics to the turtles' underground music filled the humid air. But the charged throng was oblivious that their new pop idols were immediately in their midst, as the turtles suddenly emerged from the depths from a manhole beneath a makeshift stage.  
  
"Whoa, bro, I'm like totally shaking. Can you here all those people out there?" asked a quaking Michelangelo.  
  
"Dude, chill," Donatello assured Mike, his hand on his brother's shoulder. "They're here for us, remember. They already love us. We're gonna give them a totally rockin' party. Now, c'mon bro, give me a hand with these instruments."  
  
"Fer shure, dude," grinned a collected Mike. "Let's roll."  
  
The crowd began to hush as on the stage, four masked green faces peeped from below a manhole. An a cappella hum of new Ninja Turtle hit, "Shell Shocked" began to filter through the crowd and the audience immediately erupted in elation. But their excitement coasted into a tidal crash when Michelangelo sprung somersaulting from the depths, orange guitar in hand, to growl a crescendoing, "COWABUNGA!!"  
  
But as the crowd jumped, twisted, and thrashed to the Turtles' energetic surf-rock frenzy, Shredder glowered through his binoculars, high above the concert in a Foot Clam helicopter. "Wait til they hear me," he thought. "Just wait, first it'll be City Park, then Riverdale, MTV, movies, record deals. I'll be a star, and those Turtles, well, their fifteen minutes are long up."  
  
As the turtles left the stage, after a third encore of underground rock and crowd-pleasing ninja acrobatics, Shredder began to plan his descent. He had spared no expense: new uniforms had been sewn for the Clam, covered in purple sequins, each with a matching silver insignia he had had specially designed for the occasion. His own costume, he modeled after Elvis' signature jumpsuits, full of flare and bellbottoms. But instead of Las Vegas sequins, it was Shredder's armour that would shine, his bladed helmet and body pieces polished to a white-hot, blinding platinum shine.  
  
From the helicopter, he could see his fifty-piece backup band assemble on the stage, and all that was left was to be lowered from the helicopter, amidst a laser lightshow backdrop, and win the crowd's foolish hearts away from those pesky turtles.  
  
"Bebop, it's time," Shredder ordered, a slight lump of anticipation in his gnarled throat, "lower me to the stage."  
  
"Okay, boss," Bebop retorted, "Break a leg."  
  
Moving downwards through the darkened sky, starlight and laser images surrounding him, Shredder couldn't help but think he glistened just like the light, just like a star. The awed sounds from the crowd began to build, and Shredder's ego built with it. "Listen to them calling to me...I'm here Riverdale!" he growled, reaching out to the masses below, "I'm here, your new star!"  
  
But as the sound of the crowd grew stronger, the sound of their cheers took on the eery wail of panicked screams. Certainly, on most occasions my awesome prescence is enough to strike fear in the hearts of mortals, but why now are they screaming, thought Shredder. As he looked around himself, the glinting spots of light were vanishing into violent striated sparks. He had let go of the cord that was to gently deposit him on the stage, and now his star was falling fast.  
  
Flailing dramatically, and howling "curse you turtles," Shredder smashed through the stage, and fell into a broken heap of purple satin and tarnished chrome deep under the stage. The familiar piercing nausea of shattered bones and torn flesh began to flood his senses. He grumbled with resignation, reassuring himself. He'd been in worse condition before, he would persevere. The sounds of the crowd, muffled from his burrow of injury, were changing from wails of horror into boos of disgust. He could make out the nervous scuttling of the Clam band on stage. "Mindless drones," thought Shredder. Programmed like robots, the Clam had no sense that the show must go on without their bandleader. The crowd had no need for a spectacle of fifty sequined motionless mutes.  
  
The hum of the mob eventually dissipated, and the limelight of spotlights and lasers faded into darkness, leaving Shredder with his broken thoughts. But above his battered head, he could see in the reflection of his helmet the scene above: there were still stars in the sky. But try as he did to reach them, his arm was too mangled to reach. 


End file.
